Christmas baubles have been in mass production since 1847, when they were first created by the glassblowers of the German mountain village of Lauscha. The Germans had already invented silver tinsel in the 17th century, using real silver that was sliced into wafer thin strips. In 1847 Hans Greiner made some glass ornaments in the shape of fruits and nuts …
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As a contemporary of Rene Lalique, the stunning glass of Marius Sabino has tended to be overlooked in favour of his far more famous competitor – even though Sabino’s designs are considered to be amongst the best in the world.
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Depression glass is a general description for machine-produced glassware manufactured during the great depression. Considered to be stylish, pretty and popular at the time, it brightens the home and spirit for many of today’s collectors just as it did for the original owners during the great depression.
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The first examples of glass paperweights were not from France, but Italy. It was a Venetian glass paperweight taken home by a French businessman from a show in Vienna in 1845 that set French art, craft and technology about the new art form.
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When most people interested in Art Deco glass hear the name ‘Etling’, they immediately think of a range of opalescent glass bearing that name and produced in France in the 1920s and ’30s. However, ‘Etling’ was so much more than just a glass maker.
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Today’s era has often been called the ‘throwaway’ society, but the concept of throwaway goes back much farther than that: the ‘throwaway’ cologne scent bottle was popular from the 18th century.
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The decorative glass of Finland is often overshadowed by the louder reputation of its Scandinavian cousins, which is a little unfair given the importance of some of its top designers…
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The first published flower dictionaries appeared in France in 1810, but the fascination for flowers and their delicate display has never abated and from the early 1800s to the early 1900s, glass posy baskets were all the rage.
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Glass souvenirs were a common novelty throughout Britain, Europe and America, especially as local and international travel was a popular past-time and well afforded by the new wealthy middle class.
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Often mistaken for extra-large Christmas baubles, glass witch balls have a longer and more interesting history than most Christmas decorations.
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The second half of the 19th century saw the rise in popularity of coloured mould-pressed and hand-blown glass, fashioned into purely decorative or novelty items such as Easter eggs, witch balls, sun catchers, sock darners and colourful friggers and whimsies.
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What do silversmith Alexander Crichton, Alice in Wonderland and claret jugs have in common? Quite a lot, actually: Crichton is credited with starting a late 19th century trend in claret jugs that was partly inspired by Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865) and Alice Through the Looking Glass (1872).
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Charles Schneider (1881-1952) was one of the most daring and innovative French glassmakers of the early 20th century. From the end of WWI he began producing an array of glass objects in amazing forms and with a palette of colours that was virtually unseen in glassmaking prior to the war.
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Most areas of the antiques trade have fallen victim to fakes at one time or another, but some have been more faked than others…
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When retired eye surgeon George Sturrock decided to publish a book on collecting eye baths in 2012, he knew he was appealing to a niche market…
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The fairy lamp conjures up an ethereal scene of a candle-burning night lamp surrounded by swirls of fairies spreading angel dust with their magic wands, but the name actually came from a logo belonging to a certain Samuel Clarke, of a fairy holding a wand.
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Writing in his online blog, UK antiques expert, author and Antiques Roadshow aficianado Mark Hill said: “If you asked the average collector to name an important British glass designer, most would say Geoffrey Baxter and if you them asked them to name his most iconic range it would have to be the Landmark, a textured range of 1966, released a year later”.
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From about 1890 to the 1930s, small hand-blown coloured swirl-striped scent bottles – sometimes called purse scent bottles – were made in Germany.
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Fine dining at a table set with luxurious decor was an important part of Victorian life, especially for the new wealthy middle class.
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Rene Lalique developed a fascination with the decorative possibilities of glass during the 1880s, whilst engaged in a career that eventually led him to be recognised as France’s premier jewellery designer.
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The early output at Orrefors glass was utilitarian, but it soon developed into ‘More beautiful articles for everyday use’.
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Glass has held a fascination for humans for millennia with our magpie-like love of shiny objects. Recently another element has been introduced: nostalgia. While classical forms remain timeless to collectors, glass of the not-too-distant-past is appealing to people of all ages, particularly the young, who have a renewed interest in all things retro.
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Since Neolithic times beads have been used as a symbol of power, status and, above all, objects of beauty and desire.
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It’s only relatively recently that women have had an opportunity to contribute significantly to the fields of fine art and the decorative arts. Before the emancipation of the early 20th century, women were socially constrained to domestic roles and
economic dependency. Achieving any education was a challenge unless a woman was fortunate enough to be born into a life of privilege.
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In the 17th century it became extremely fashionable to wear beauty spots, not just on the face but on other parts of the person that might be displayed. In fact, the number of patches required by the average French courtier led to the production of special boxes in which they were stored.
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Glassmaking in Bohemia probably began in the 14th century, and from the outset a style different from the glass of Venice was attempted. Instead the of fluid, airy forms produced by the Venetians, the Bohemians favoured heavier, deeply cut and also engraved styles…
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In July 2011, a lucky UK car boot sale enthusiast sold three opaque twist wine glasses at auction for $24,000. He had paid less than $1 each for them. The secret of his success was in the name – the glasses came from the famed Beilby workshop.
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Aficionados of fortified wines might recognise the name of Henry Bathurst, the 19th-century bishop of Norwich. His habit of ‘forgetting’ to keep the postprandial port bottle circulating around the table led to the use of the expression, “Do you know
the bishop of Norwich?” as a subtle way of encouraging similarly absent-minded dining companions to pass it on…
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A team of seven skilled craftsmen, twelve work stages, 1100 degree temperatures and 3 hours are required to make one mouth-blown Iittala Aalto (Savoy) vase.
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Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Diamond Jubilee in June 2012, almost equalling the record set by Queen Victoria with her 63 years of rule. There will be plenty of royal memorabilia on offer to commemorate the event, in a tradition that goes back more than three hundred years.
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For retro collectors, the top-selling areas are in the period from around 1920–1980, from the beginning of the Art
Deco period up to the latter 20th century. Rather than collecting everything in a particular range, retro buyers tend to pick out what looks good to them – what fits their style or décor – and they tend to look for outstanding, quirky or unusual examples.
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Perfume bottles are a popular collectable all over the world. There are various types of bottles to collect: commercial, art glass, Czech, Victorian, novelty, in fact a perfume bottle to suit all tastes and interests. In the early mid-20th century, many French fashion houses began to produce their own fragrances. However, this was not the case in Australia.
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It is perhaps surprising to learn that the English town of Accrington in Lancashire, in the UK, is the proud possessor of a valuable collection of Tiffany glass, comprising around 120 pieces; it’s the largest single collection of its sort in Europe, and is one of the world’s finest.
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On 26 January 1856, English glassmaker Benjamin Richardson was given a patent for an innovative glass design that incorporated ‘an improvement in the manufacture of articles in glass, so as to produce peculiar ornamental effect’. Specialist collector John Frith investigates.
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The late Victorian era through to the early 20th century saw the production of coloured glass articles of a diversity of styles and purposes, using many different techniques.
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Although Galle and Daum are household names with collectors, the lesser-known firm of D’Argental also produced French cameo glass of consistently high quality.
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Mention colourful Italian glass and you probably think of Venetian or Murano, but there have been other areas of significant glass production in Italy… one of which is Empoli.
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When more than 60 pieces of glass made by Samuel Herman were shown in a dedicated exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1971, he became the first contemporary glass artist and the first living glass artist to be given an exhibition at the museum…
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In an age when the medical fraternity was more interested in curing your soul than your body, the apothecary was the best hope of an ordinary person seeking a cure. Their medical containers range from ceramic albarelli to modern poison bottles.
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In May 2013, The New York Times published a piece on Blenko Glass to coincide with an exhibition called Big Color that took place during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. Since the glass was neither contemporary nor furniture, what was it doing there?
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The industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and America created a new wealth for the middle and aristocratic classes, who spent their money on expensive luxuries such as silverware, crystal glass, jewellery, perfumes – and scent bottles.
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As Scandinavian glass takes the retro world by storm, there’s one major glass producer that has been largely overlooked. Welcome to the world of Riihmaki.
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Some of the most sought after pieces of glass were ridiculed in their day. But time passes and tastes change, and today’s collectors see something entirely different in the daring and sometimes eccentric designs of the mid-20th century.
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Vintage glass is one of the easiest – and (mostly) inexpensive – collections to start. Whether you’re looking to brighten up your kitchen, create an eye-catching display or fully immerse your dining experience in a vintage style, there’s a style of glass for everyone.
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Ivor Hughes looks at the rise in popularity and accessibility of Swedish art glass, both domestically and worldwide in the 1950s.
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The first examples of glass paperweights were not from France, but Italy. It was a Venetian glass paperweight taken home by a French businessman from a show in Vienna in 1845 that set French art, craft and technology about the new art form.
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